"Alex knows," Jason reported. "They're nearing the rear of the building. Good if we can get transport in a hurry."
"Right, let's move," she said, but still paused until the native platoon was a few meters further away.
The immediate problem was that there were no cars on this street. Either it was closed with barricades, hopefully, and they'd find some a street over, or driving had become impossible and they wouldn't. The latter was not acceptable to their plans, so focus on the former.
Another advance got them to the next block. Traffic wasn't much better as far as vehicles, but there were fewer people, and more motion. Some were running toward the palace, with shouts about loot and vengeance. Others were sensibly running away. Another element simply ignored the happenings and sat, talking, playing, drinking.
Then they started taking fire.
"Shit!" Jason shouted as he threw himself prone.
"They saw we're Earthers," Elke said as she fired a burst in return. She'd been facing the fire. "Over there." She pointed.
And Jason was on his feet, because there was nowhere to take cover in the street. They zigzagged across an alley opening to a building with a nearby door. They stacked, her backward for defense, him forward, and he kicked.
The door was only wood and burst open. He fired a single shot straight ahead at nothing, turned left as Elke backed in and fanned right.
It was a flophouse, and the occupants scrambled for the rear.
"Going to be a delay on the vehicle," Jason shouted into his mic.
"We're still advancing, but it's getting tight," Alex replied. She heard it, too.
"We need to be moving," Elke said. "Only way to find transport."
"Yes, but let me take out that asshole, first," Jason said, pointing.
It really wasn't hard. They'd been targeted for being in the street, armed, and out of place. The would-be sniper was still sitting at the same window, occasionally taking a shot at someone or other. Jason's carbine wasn't competition accurate, even after his mods, but it didn't need to be. He lined up the shot, took a slow, measured breath, and squeezed. Half the vůl's head peeled off in a splash of blood, and shards of the window—glass again—followed the body out of sight.
"Now we can go," he said.
There were two or three semiprofessional factions fighting their way in toward the palace, and various gangs and tribes forming a shifting pattern of allies and enemies. That did improve things in that a lot of innocent people were running around, creating distractions, acting as unintentional soft cover, and impeding progress.
"I'm going to shoot some recon," she said.
"Roger."
She slung weapons again, dialed the cassette for its two reconnaissance rounds, and raised the shotgun. One should go over that building to the next block, and one at an angle over that way. She felt two heavy thumps against her shoulder. The projectiles would work—and had worked, she recalled—as regular slugs, but were rather pricey for that, being pop-fin stabilized rockets with cameras. The resolution was adequate for this, but at several hundred meters per second, they caught only a few frames each.
Her glasses flashed. She didn't dare get out a fliptop in these conditions. The 10mm image on the glasses would have to do. She had six frames of each she could scroll through. Yes, there were quite a few cars. Of course, they'd have to find one either with a driver, or with its ignition already bypassed for easy starting. That happened a lot here since it was cheaper to do that than fix a damaged ignition lock.
"Over that way." She pointed. "Between those two buildings. Do you see the narrow alley?"
"I hate narrow alleys," Jason said. "But let's go."
"Argonaut to Playwright, we're about two blocks away and have located a taxi, over," he reported.
"Understood. Is my location on your map, over?"
"Stand by, over, break, Elke, got a marker on them on your glasses?"
She flipped a button to change views and said, "Yes."
"Affirmative, Playwright. Stand by for pickup, over."
"Don't take too long, out."
Most of the crowd didn't want to mess with anyone armed, and moved clear. Others didn't see them and could be slipped past. Only a few were disposed to trouble, but they could not be relied upon to be either logical or respectful.
* * *
No sooner had they entered the shadowy depths of the alley than did it become obvious some group thought them a convenient resupply. Jason sighed under his gasping breath.
The two of them were far better than any reasonable number of opponents, but quantity has a quality all its own. Some observer pegged them for their movement, weapons, or appearance, and fire started concentrating around them. Jason felt a bite against his ribs as his armor stiffened and went slack again. The shot had come from the door or the window to the left. He fired a burst in that direction and kept running. Which one wasn't relevant. Suppress and move. He heard Elke fire a blast from the grenade launcher. The result was another one of her horrifying meat grinders. He wasn't sure whom she hit, but blood splashed across his field of view.
They headed back out into daylight, but there was substantial attention on them now. They'd been made as either soldiers or some kind of contractor, and that made them a juicy target for kidnapping, abuse, or flat-out murder, so their gear could be plundered.
They were back onto a street, this one far less traveled, which was a good thing. On the other hand, without a crowd to hide in, they were far more visible to the ersatz unit now chasing them.
"Cover." He pointed, indicating a building front that was well bombed out but still looked structurally sound. She skipped ahead and entered a ragged hole in the brick face shotgun first. He dived for the hollow and took her back.
She announced, "Clear!" and turned.
"Company, and lots of it," he said. "Which way are those cars?"
"Left," she said.
"So let's move." The swarming threats had deduced their direction and were moving, too. Passing gunmen occasionally shot at them. At least the gun men didn't have radio or any other signal method apart from shouting. They were coming, though, and at least one had made them and was pointing at them while shouting. He started shooting and they both dropped.
"Grab the spare cassette from my back!" Elke shouted.
Jason fumbled at her ruck, retrieved the drum, slapped her ass, and stretched it over her left shoulder. She reached up and grabbed it.
Jason dropped down and slapped her boot. She shimmied back and over him, intimately close even with rucks, gear, sweat, and incoming fire. There were clattering noises behind and a curse. Then she slapped his boot.
He fired a burst at yet another freak in the street, and shifted back into the crevice. He crawled over her, keeping clear of her muzzle, and she shouted, "Ten meters fast and cover me! Move!"
He glanced at the wall and didn't need to be told twice. Holy shit! He took the warning to heart and backed up fast.
He dumped his magazine at movement as she elevated and flew past him, like some magical elf in dusty combat gear. He counted three as he reloaded, eyes on the magazine. You couldn't shoot while reloading, and if you had someone to cover you, you didn't need to. Just reload as fast as possible and carry on.
Then he turned back to the street, as her voice burst from his radio.
"Now! Now! Covering!"
He turned to see her in a doorway, rimmed by concrete, and sprinted. She started firing, rounds within a meter of him, forcing threats back behind the alley corner. He passed her and took the next doorway, an alcove of sorts with a rolling door.
"Fireinthehole!" she shouted, and clicked a switch.
The cassette was designed so you could fire all twenty rounds at once, as a directional mine. But this one erupted. The blast snatched at his breath.
It had been pointed at an angle from the building's foundation, but left a divot in the ground and a hole in the wall as it blew. Whatever the bitch had loaded it with was just bru
tal. The sound was that of high explosive, but there was a lot of debris and fragments. A good amount of that was embedded in their pursuers. One torso lay legless in a pool of blood. Virtually every body on the street, still or writhing, was painted crimson, with skin peeling from shattered limbs.
That was all there was time to see as they backed around the next corner.
"Transport!" Jason shouted as he pointed his carbine at a car's driver. The man panicked and tried to accelerate. Jason shot through the windshield and killed him. He needed the vehicle, needed it now, and no lone male around here was enough to arouse sympathy.
He shifted around the bumper of the slowing car as Elke slip-stepped behind. Then they did a little dance step that ended with the body on the ground, Jason sitting on the driver's seat with warm blood against his hair and under his pants—the upper chest shot had splashed—and Elke pirouetting into the rear seat to cover 270 degrees in a moving arc.
"I'm leaving the windows for now," she said.
"Understood." He nailed the throttle and headed back for the rest. He honked at pedestrians and swerved around wreckage that included cars, trash and the bodies Elke had left.
"Elke, what the hell was that?"
"I stuffed the empty space of the cassettes with Composition G and shotgun flechettes."
"Shit! What happens if someone shoots you?"
"Assumes a weapon energetic enough to penetrate cassette and my armor. As I'm not likely to care after that moment, I've never worried about that question."
"Elke, you're a fucking whackjob."
"Yes." He looked back at her, but she was scanning for threats as they bounced over bodies. That was it. Yes.
"Playwright, this is Argonaut, arriving in ninety seconds," he said into his radio.
"Roger, we're ready. What direction?"
"Blue." South.
"Confirm blue."
Driving through the crowd wasn't any safer. Enough bodies could stop a car, and his window was missing. He trusted Elke, and it was a good thing, because as he headed into the crowd, she shot right past his face, nailing someone who was trying to reach into the car and scrabble for the lock.
"Thanks." He was glad for earbuds and for the suppressed carbine. Her shotgun would have gone past the volume curve they were designed for and deafened him at that range. Not to mention the muzzle flash that would cause scorches.
"They are ahead and see us," she said, "and will clear an area loudly."
"Got it," he agreed. He wondered if the ammo could hold out, even on the Medusa.
There they were, up ahead, and they'd regrouped. That certainly made things easier. The crowd was thinner here, but a lot of people seemed to think the car was a taxi. They'd piled on the roof and tail. He dissuaded the ones on the hood by jolting the brakes to toss them off, while Elke pointed a gun and looked menacing. That mostly worked. Harmless passengers were great for concealment and to soak up any fire, but he had to be able to see.
He kept moving at a fast crawl, and people squeezed or jumped aside, beating on the car, cursing, occasionally raising a club. Someone raised a pistol and Elke shot him through the face.
Ahead, the team was in a huddle around a burned-out sandwich cart. Alex shouted something; it came over the earbuds but was too distorted to tell.
Bart understood it, however, and started shooting. He walked in a rapid circle, aiming his fire in a widening spiral that caused a huge hole to open. Aramis backed behind, picking targets near people's feet, and pointing at still forms for them to drag into the crowd. They seemed to be stunned, not dead.
Jason rolled through a thick cluster that had backed away from the fire, and into the clearing. That simple. Except there was no good way to get the doors open without the crowd trying to swarm in. They saw transport and they intended to exploit it.
"Aw, fuck this," he said, and dug into his pocket. He peeled off a couple of the larger bills and let them flutter into the foot well, then tossed the entire handful into a high arc.
"Free money!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs. "Hundreds of marks!"
It worked. Everyone on this side of the car swarmed toward the fluttering plastic slips. The downside was that the crowd on the other side swarmed over the car to get to it. But they were going over the low areas, not the high roof, which was still occupied. That reduced the torrent enough that Alex was able to get the door open.
Bodies piled in the back, far too crowded. This vehicle was made for four, not twelve. Once Aramis, Bal, and Shaman piled in the back, White wiggled into the hatch. Her three goons shooed people off the deck and sat on it. Bart jumped onto the hood, shaking the suspension and denting the plastic, but making a very good turret. That left the roof for Alex, because Rahul pulled open the passenger door and wiggled under Elke. He had a pistol he balanced on the door sill, as Jason ran all the windows down. Better they have easy fields of fire now.
"Window is stuck," Shaman said, followed by a splintering of the plastic. From the sound, he'd jammed something through it to crack the edge, and then pushed. "Good knife," he said laconically.
Bart dropped the Medusa on the ground next to the car, made clear eye contact with Jason, and said, "Run."
Jason gulped and nailed the throttle. Bart had just set the damned thing to autonomous function and a few seconds delay. They did not want to be around when it started shooting.
Someone fell underneath and screamed as Jason crunched over them, the car bumping, sticking, dragging, and the tires slipping on something wet and greasy—a body—before regaining traction and rolling. Inside, he cringed. Dammit, these poor bastards hadn't done anything to him. At the same time, it was their own fucking fault for not moving out of the way. He made a snappy comment of "Someone will have to give him a leg up." But he really hoped there wouldn't be any more incidents.
Behind them came the cacophonous roar of the Medusa seeking its own targets, powered necks sweeping around and shooting. The shooting got louder, because the crowd had swarmed it to try to loot it and had made themselves easy targets that muffled the noise at first. Once those bodies were down, it sought targets among those now fleeing. The necks twisted and swiveled and shot, while the grenade launcher neck tossed shells in high arcs to come down and blow frag into the mix. That would continue as long as the ammunition held out . . .
A moderate explosion slapped at them.
. . . and then it would self-destruct.
The windows were down or broken out now. The car definitely blended in better. Some people were trying to climb in, hang on, or take the vehicle. Jason kept his weapon on his right side, balanced over his left arm, and shot single shots whenever someone tried to climb the driver's side. So far, it had only been adult males trying to gain access, but females or children were fair game at this point. What was the French term? Sauve qui peut? Save what you can.
He stopped thinking because there were bodies ahead and someone climbed on the door. He shot, sounded the horn, shouted, revved the engine, and kept driving. Bart shot into the ground periodically to warn people away. Behind him, Elke cursed in Czech, Rahul in some language he didn't recognize, and the rest in English. Those knives and tomahawks were getting use now, chopping and stabbing at groins, guts, fingers, and thighs of anyone trying to stop or board the car. Bal had two stun batons and was reaching out each side to help.
The crowd further back from the palace lightened, and he reached a good speed. He wove little, forcing pedestrians to dodge and swear at him. They occasionally threw a rock or shot. He ignored that. Bart had hooked his legs around the front pillar to gain a hold while he shot right. Elke shot straight ahead right past Bart's spine, with Rahul reinforcing the middle passenger side. Aramis stood through a hole he'd hacked in the thin roof, offering support in all directions even if he was exposed. Behind him, Jason wasn't sure what was going on. He heard a lot of shooting and brawling. An empty carbine flew out in two pieces, stripped by someone who didn't need it anymore.
He grinned at t
he promotional video Corporate could make out of this by enhancing Elke's recordings. We only sent six operators. It was only one war.
"Man down, man down!" someone shouted. He didn't recognize the voice but it was someone in this car.
Then four people shouted, "Man down!" in confirmation.
"Orders, Alex?" he shouted back. He slowed a little but didn't stop. Two of the NCOs were hauling a limp mess back up the rear deck.
"Sergeant Buckley is down, he's . . . dammit, keep driving."
Jason nailed it again. Behind him, White screamed curses and emptied her weapon. Buckley was at least her compatriot if not a friend, and he was dead.
"I want all of you skinny little cocksucking illiterati to die!" she shrieked, punctuated by bursts that sounded very controlled.
Better to Beg Forgiveness-ARC Page 31
